


The World in His Grasp

by lq_traintracks (lumosed_quill)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, Hogwarts Seventh Year, Infidelity, M/M, One Night Stands, Semi-Public Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 12:59:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15864108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumosed_quill/pseuds/lq_traintracks
Summary: Sirius's knee moved against James's. His breath was tinged sweet with butterbeer. It seemed so incongruous… was clearly Remus's influence. Sirius wasn't a butterbeer bloke; he was shots, the burn of it like gasoline down your gullet. Sirius was Firewhisky.  He was fire.





	The World in His Grasp

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Bring Back the Porn](https://bbtp-challenge.dreamwidth.org/)!

"I love you," said Lily as she kissed James one last time on her way to the girls' dormitories. 

"Love you too," said James, their hands still linked. Lily walked slowly backward, inviting and then receiving another kiss. And a third.

"Goodnight," she told him.

"Night." He let go of one hand and then the other. He watched her ascend the stairs with a sigh… watched the way her arse moved under her pleated skirt. 

_I'm going to marry that girl_ , James thought.

In her absence, indeed the absence of anyone at all in the Gryffindor common room, James collapsed on the sofa in front of the fire and laid his head back on the cushions, letting the heat from the flames warm his toes through his woolen socks, the light flickering across his closed eyelids. The silence, except for a few popping sparks and the abrupt splintering of firewood, engulfed him, and he could have slept half-sitting as he was.

But a few minutes later, he heard them outside in the hall, Sirius's animated voice coming through as if _Sonorus_ 'd. Remus said the password, and then they stepped through the portrait hole in a burst of sound. James didn't bother opening his eyes. Sirius was laughing and talking simultaneously. He tended to become infatuated with his own story-telling, and this incident seemed like no exception. James felt a smile flit at the corner of his mouth.

"Uh huh," replied Remus at a natural pause for breath, and then again when Sirius made a particularly compelling point.

"Are you actually listening to me, Moony, or are you just staring at my lips and answering in the affirmative?" Sirius finally asked as they reached the vicinity of the archway leading to the boys' stairs.

"Can't I be doing both?"

"Were you?"

"You were pointing out the inconsistency in allowing swimmers in the Black Lake, what with the dangers therein, at which point you enumerated said dangers—Merpeople, Grindylows, the Giant Squid, etc.—when the Forbidden Forest is off-limits to students and indeed _doesn't_ pose the threat of also drowning that the lake does."

"Hmm," Sirius grunted, and James could envision the frown on his brow.

"I listen to you, Sirius," Remus murmured. James could hear it in his voice… how they'd neared one another, how Remus was now touching him, how their lips were parting, readying for the kiss. 

James cleared his throat, prying one eye open and turning his head on the back of the sofa. A flit of guilt seized him for a moment; he and Lily had, after all, secured the common room for themselves and had fifteen whole minutes of snogging time. It wasn't that James minded their flirtations. He wasn't quite sure why he'd felt the need to interrupt. He'd have liked to believe his motivations were on behalf of his friends and their expectation of privacy, yet James suspected the closer truth was that he disliked not being noticed. Especially by Sirius.

"Prongs," Sirius said, arm still wrapped around Remus's back, his chin resting on Remus's too-thin shoulder. "What's with the creepy loitering? Hoping for a show were you?" He waggled his brows.

"If I'd wanted one, I wouldn't have alerted you, now would I have? And I'm not loitering, you knob. It's the bloody common room."

"It's late," Sirius observed, checking a non-existent watch on his wrist, consulting, instead, his many black rubber bracelets and the couple of tattoos beneath.

"It's only midnight, dickhead."

Sirius's lips twitched, and Remus exited his arms, straightening his jumper where Sirius's hands had roamed beneath and dishevelled it.

"Sit with him, Sirius. He's obviously missed you."

"Oh sod off, Moony," James scoffed. He'd take an Unforgivable for the prat, but it did irk him just a little that Remus found him so bloody transparent.

Remus simply winked at him in reply, then turned and pressed a chaste kiss to the corner of Sirius's lips. "You've worn me out anyway," James heard him whisper. It seemed to reference both Sirius's overly excited talk from before and other things to which James would rather not be privy. James wasn't a prude though. And he certainly didn't mind that they were both blokes. It wasn't that. Before Lily, James fooled around with more than a handful of witches, but also, once, with Drew Macdonald, the Ravenclaw Keeper. The opportunity had presented itself, and he'd… wondered. A fact he'd passed on to Sirius one late drunken night at the Hog's Head and which was received with surprising chill considering Sirius's own proclivities.

"Goodnight, James," said Remus now, already trudging up the stairs, hand a bit shaky on the banister. 

"Night, Moony!" James called after him. Then softer, to Sirius, "Do you need to go with him?" 

Sirius shook his head. "It's three more days till the moon. He's alright, just tired." He wandered over and sat heavily next to James with a loud exhale.

"Rough night in rowdy Hogsmeade?" James ventured with a smile.

Sirius elbowed him hard in the ribs. "Shut it. Remus likes it there."

"What Remus likes, Remus gets."

"And that's suddenly a problem why?" Sirius half-turned to him, his mass of well-brushed hair falling over his shoulder.

James sighed. "It's not. I didn't mean it like that. Merlin, why are you so narked?"

Sirius sank back into the cushions then, mirroring James. Their knees rested against one another, legs wide. "He just takes such shite, I didn't expect any to come from _you._ "

"It _didn't_ come from me. Stop being so tetchy."

"Fuck off," said Sirius blandly.

"You fuck off. Fucker."

Sirius snickered at that, shoving at James's side and receiving James's return shove with only a pretense at defense.

"Sorry," Sirius murmured once the shoving ceased.

They sat and watched the fire for a few more minutes. It felt nice, Sirius's body so warm beside his. James felt drowsy again, like he could lean his head on Sirius's shoulder and find a kip waiting there. He made himself lift his head up, casting his glance around the room. 

"Quiet tonight," he said.

"Early Quidditch tomorrow," said Sirius. "Hufflepuff/Slytherin, as you would well know. I thought you'd be asleep already too. Were you 'studying' with Evans then?"

James shrugged. He used to love talking about Lily with Sirius. But for a while now—and he wasn't sure when this had changed—he just… didn't. "Where's Peter?"

"He's gone rat. Thinks he can sneak into the kitchens and get a second round of dessert that way."

They both stared into the flames a moment more. James could hear Sirius breathing, slow and steady.

"So it's just us then," James said. He'd meant to inject a note of mischief into his voice—the insinuation that they could, as they often did, get up to no good. But instead he sounded… breathless, as though he'd raced up and down the moving staircases the way they had done together third year, trying to leap to the receding balustrade before the danger became too great to attempt it.

"Yeah," Sirius said. He flicked his long hair out of his face, rubbing his palm down the thigh of his trousers.

Suddenly, James's throat was dry. The room was too hot. He longed to strip off, to be anywhere but right here, right now.

"What say we sneak out and go for a swim, Pads?"

"Are you mad?" Sirius asked him. "You remember the last time we were caught out of the castle in the middle of the night. McG blew steam out her nostrils. We ought to wait at least another fortnight before we look for _that_ kind of trouble again."

James shrugged. "I dunno. I guess I just thought…" The pause went on too long for comfort, and when he finally looked at Sirius, James found him looking back intently, his dark eyes reflecting firelight.

"You thought what?" asked Sirius. His knee moved against James's. His breath was tinged sweet with butterbeer. It seemed so incongruous… was clearly Remus's influence. Sirius wasn't a butterbeer bloke; he was shots, the burn of it like gasoline down your gullet. Sirius was Firewhisky. 

He was fire.

James swallowed. He looked away with a shake of his head. "Never mind."

Sirius looked at his profile a moment more; James could feel the searching intensity of that look, and he was scared of the meaning behind it. 

James hated feeling scared. Of anything. He fought fear like an opponent. Like the Slytherin Beaters always out for his head.

"Well," said Sirius then. "I guess… I should get to bed, you know?" He sighed. "It's getting late." Even though they'd been staying up until two am together since fifth year. Sleep was for people who weren't like them, people who didn't squeeze all the blood and sweat and joy out of life that they could get in each moment.

Sirius made to stand, and before he thought, James shot his hand out and grabbed for his wrist, closing his fingers around it. "Wait."

Sirius hovered on the edge of the couch, a small frown dipping his brows, yet he didn't attempt to get out of James's hold. They sat there like that, barely breathing, for way too long. The magnitude of the quiet became oppressive, like someone had thrown a _Silencio_.

James finally inhaled to speak. "Stay, Pads."

Sirius's frown deepened into wariness, and it was so stupidly good-looking that James almost laughed.

"What are you smiling at?" Sirius asked.

"Nothing," James said, his mirth disappearing, overrun by the sudden racing of his pulse through his whole body. He throbbed with it. He felt himself pulling gently and slowly on Sirius's wrist, fingers slipping beneath warm rubber to find skin, the coarse hair. He didn't know why, didn't know what he was doing. Like the summer nights when they lived under the same roof and sometimes slept in the same bed, and James would roll toward Sirius, feeling unseasonably cold or hungry or dissatisfied, aching with something he couldn't understand. He wouldn't touch. He'd just lie there, wanting. He just… wanted.

Sirius's frown transformed into something bordering on panic, yet he said nothing, and he let himself be pulled closer. James's gaze fell to his lips. He'd never kissed another bloke. The fumbling with Macdonald had consisted of the other boy's hand rubbing hard at James's halfie outside his trousers for all of thirty seconds. Macdonald had come in his pants, not noticing or caring that James hadn't even got a proper hard-on in the same amount of time. It had left James wondering if he would have… if he might want to… 

It had left him thinking not of Macdonald afterwards, but of Sirius.

"James," Sirius said now in warning. They were close enough that James's intentions could no longer be denied. It was heady, electric.

"Shut up." James worked his free hand into Sirius's hair and pulled.

Sirius gasped, the line of his throat arching. James watched him swallow. Before he knew it, he'd attached his lips to Sirius's Adam's apple, sucking a kiss there. Sirius pulled away, gaze finding James's wildly. They looked at one another, a thousand questions flying through that moment like sparks from a bonfire. Then they crashed together—and Sirius was kissing him, his tongue plunging into James's mouth, his own lips opening, remaining open as if waiting, and when James delved inside, Sirius… Merlin, he _groaned_.

James reached for Sirius's belt, loosening and opening it before Sirius's hands on his own stopped him. James's breath went anxiously short, thinking this thing, whatever it was, would be over before it even started. He reached again, flicking the button open on Sirius's trousers, only to have his hands slapped away, hard. Sirius broke the kiss to bite down on his bottom lip in warning, a soft growl leaving his throat. He wrapped James's wrists in his fingers and hauled his arms up, pinning them to the sofa by his head, looming over him, his face thrown into shadow. 

Then he leaned back a little, flicking the hair out of his face, his gaze meeting James's, kissed lips panting. His hands stroked down James's lifted arms, his armpits, his chest, and he began unbuttoning James's shirt. James let him do it, watched him do it. It was fast, efficient, as though Sirius had been fighting the desire to pop these very buttons for eons. His fingers were at once trembling and sure. 

A log broke and fell into the embers, and at the sound they both turned to the girls' stairs. No one was there of course—that wasn't where the sound had issued from, though they both obviously feared it had. They looked at each other again after a moment, and what passed between them couldn't be disguised: They'd thought they were caught. They knew this was something at which they could be caught. That it was wrong.

And as Sirius now parted James's shirt, and James let him, it was clear they were going to keep going anyway.

Sirius's mouth descended to James's chest, tongue coming out to taste his skin. James let his head fall back, his arms dropping to his sides, hands useless. And _oh_ how he wanted to do the same to Sirius, to lick across the new tattoos he'd got, the fresh one over his heart, the one down by his hip…

But Sirius was working his way down James's stomach, sliding between his legs. He glanced up as he got James's trousers worked open. James blinked at him and watched Sirius work his trousers and pants past his arse as he lifted it to help. His cock sprang out, fully erect and leaking a little. It was almost a shock to see it… that he was this hard… that Sirius had, already, done _this_ to him.

Sirius's gaze stayed locked with his own as he kissed James's belly with his hot, open mouth. James's dick twitched and nudged his chin.

"Oh fuck, Pads."

Sirius's lashes fluttered closed, and he rubbed his cheek against James's hard-on, smearing the precome across his face. He then leaned back just a little, his eyes opening, drugged gaze finally finding James's cock. He wrapped his hand around it, and James's fists closed tight around the sofa cushions.

Sirius sighed, his warm breath bathing the damp slit, and then he sucked James's cock into his mouth, taking him halfway down, hollowing his cheeks and moaning.

James's head thrashed against the sofa, and he tried to hold back the noise that came out of him, this strangled, hopeless thing. One hand found the top of Sirius's head, soft hair filling his hand. James didn't make a fist. He didn't stroke exactly. He just bunched it in his hand and released it, over and over, as Sirius bobbed there in his lap.

It seemed a stupid thing to notice, but Sirius's mouth was so _wet_. It felt dangerous, like James might die of it. Might die of getting sucked off and be fine with that. The thought brought a dazed smile to his face, and he lifted his head, gazing down at the way his cock filled and stretched Sirius's mouth. James cupped his face, and Sirius's gaze met his own, his mouth still working, the hot little sounds of it making James's balls draw up tight.

He ran his thumb over Sirius's bottom lip wonderingly, catching the spit that shone there. He stroked to the corner of Sirius's mouth, to his cheek, felt the push of his own cock moving inside. Bloody Merlin...

 _I want to fuck your mouth,_ he thought. And it must have changed his expression, shown on his face, because Sirius made an aching sound in his throat, and when James braced his hand down and began minutely thrusting up, Sirius merely relaxed his tongue, no longer sucking, and let James use him.

He gathered up Sirius's hair in his fist—he wanted to see his face—and he fucked as far in as he could, the head of his dick touching the back of Sirius's throat. Sirius gagged a little, but when James hesitated, Sirius looked up, almost pleading, and gave a short and emphatic nod. James pushed deep into his mouth again.

"Fuck," James cried. "Pads, fuck, I'm gonna—"

He felt it burst from him in a hot rush, his thighs quaking. Sirius swallowed it, swallowed what he could as it flooded his mouth and then ran down James's shaft. James's hand fell from where he'd gripped Sirius's hair. As the last of it shot out, Sirius caught the ribbons on his tongue. He kissed the head of James's cock lavishly, hot tongue working under the glans only for his mouth to close over the tip again, his cheeks hollowing with his effort.

"Bloody hell I can't," James gasped when it became too much, pushing Sirius's head gently out of his lap.

Sirius licked his lips.

"Did you come?" James asked him, the high of his own orgasm still buzzing through his body, making him feel drunk and energised both. It felt scandalous to talk to him now, after this, _about_ this.

Sirius shook his head no.

"C'mere then."

Merlin, he'd just come and yet… once Sirius rose from the floor and straddled James's hips, his hair hanging around his face, James couldn't get into his trousers quickly enough. He'd never wanted to touch another boy's cock like he wanted, _needed_ , to touch Sirius now.

It was hot and thick in his hand, and he wanked it slowly at first—until Sirius whined, and then James sped up. Sirius thrust his hips, pushing his cock into James's blur of a fist. There was so much precome; the front of Sirius's pants were soaked with it where they were bunched beneath his bollocks.

Sirius's hands flew to the back of the sofa to steady himself. They breathed hard in one another's faces. "Touch me," James said—and felt Sirius's hands wrap around the back of his neck, up into the hair at the base of his skull, that sensitive place that gave him the shivers when Lily would caress there with her fingernails.

He closed his eyes tightly on the thought, physically willing it away. He concentrated on the feel of Sirius's bigger hands, their heat, the strange tenderness with which he now held onto James as he bucked toward completion in James's lap.

James slowed his hand, not wanting this to end. He didn't want it to ever end.

Sirius whimpered in his throat, hips thrusting faster, awkwardly, and Sirius was so infrequently awkward that it ignited something inside James, his chest warming painfully with it. He slung his free arm around Sirius with something resembling desperation, dragging him closer. His hand sped again, giving Sirius what he wanted. "You gonna do it?" he breathed, his lips so close to Sirius's clenching jaw now. If he tilted his head, they'd be kissing again. The thing inside him flared strong at the thought, and his spent cock gave a weak jolt.

"Juh-Jamie," Sirius gasped, hands tightening on the back of James's neck. James doubted he'd ever in his life felt more powerful than he did right at that moment. And then Sirius came. James watched his face—features contorting with pleasure, a cry wrenched from his lungs—and he was rapt. His hand worked each spasm from his best friend's cock with gentle, rhythmic squeezes, and Sirius panted against his lips.

So this was what it looked like, felt like. To burn it all down and, for a few short seconds, rejoice at the destruction.

Sirius wilted with a shuddering groan when he finished. His head dropped onto James's shoulder, face finding the wam cradle of his neck. "Fuck," he breathed on a tired laugh.

James wiped his hand on Sirius's trousers. Even though he wanted to taste it. He was jealous of Sirius so openly getting to taste him.

Sirius fell to the sofa beside James, and his absence was like getting hit with the first icy chill of winter through your bundled clothes. The fire had died down to flickering orange and grey ashes. Sirius lifted his hips and fastened his trousers, so James followed suit. 

They sat there, Sirius catching his breath still, smoothing the hair off his face. James didn't dare look at him. And all he wanted to do was look at him. He felt like a pervert suddenly. Not for the sex. Sex was sex. But for this part. For it being over and him still being here, still wanting. Wanting what he couldn't have.

"Fuck, that was mental," he found himself saying to cover this building ache, this stupid sense of loss.

"Screw you, I was fabulous," Sirius said with a seductive smile in his voice. It was like a cold hand reaching into James's chest. It was just how Sirius always sounded.

"Should have been, with all the practice you get."

Sirius snorted. 

James took the horrible chance and looked at him. When their gazes met, Sirius's lips were smiling, but it didn't quite meet his eyes.

James quelled the words rising in his throat. Any moment he might start pleading for it, and yet he had no idea what 'it' was: Their friendship? More? More of _this_? For things not to change? For everything to change.

"Prongs," Sirius said, all pretense dropping, and yet James had the awful feeling he was about to be _Crucio_ 'd. 

Whatever Sirius had been about to say, though, he never did. Footfalls sounded in the hall, and once the password was uttered, Sirius leapt off the couch, turning toward the mantle and the fire and picking up the poker, jabbing at the embers and clearing his throat.

Peter came through the portrait. "Alright," he said.

"Peter," James said.

"Mm," grunted Sirius. "I'm going to bed." He looked at James once, quickly, his eyes seeming to reflect James back to himself in all his cowardly glory. "You get any extra meat pies, Wormtail? I'm starving."

"Ate 'em all," replied Peter, bounding up the stairs past Sirius with a laugh.

James held his breath when Sirius stopped on the first step, hesitating, and then turning back toward James just a little.

He didn't know what he was doing. Hell, he hadn't known all night, his whole life probably. But James got up off the couch and, on sturdier legs than he was expecting, strode over. He ceased thinking at all, just took Sirius's face hard in his hands and mashed their lips together. Sirius made a sound like anguish into his mouth, even as his lips readily opened. God, would he always have opened for James had James sought him? Their tongues touched, easy and awful. Like ripping your heart from your chest and still marvelling at the beauty of its blood.

Sirius pulled away but let their foreheads rest together. He gave a wet laugh. "You're the most infuriating arsehole I've ever met," he said softly. "I'll never be rid of you. You know that right?"

James couldn't be sure, but he thought he heard some fissure in Sirius's voice, some small measure of the pain James suffered along his every nerve. "You won't ever be rid of me," James said, his hand slipping onto Sirius's neck. 

"Yeah?" Sirius asked, voice tight with hope.

"Of course, you ponce." The bare, agonising truth. He choked it away. "We're going for that swim in a fortnight, aren't we?" He let his hand wander down to Sirius's chest, felt the strong heart beating under his palm, but Sirius looked so pained, he finally let it fall to his side. He tried to look as casual as perhaps he'd once felt. But he sensed his expression tended towards the imploring instead. It was dark enough. Maybe Sirius wouldn't see it.

Sirius cleared his throat. "I don't know. I guess we'll see."

James leaned back to better see his friend's face. A tear track shone there in what was left of the light.

"Yeah," said James numbly. "I guess so."

He took hold of the banisters as Sirius took another step up the stairs. Here he was, holding this lifeless thing even as he felt torn in two with wanting Sirius in his arms again.

"You coming? Up?" Sirius clarified belatedly with a bit of a blush.

"In a while. Just gonna…" James shrugged. There was no finish to that sentence. Wait here and get over you in the next twenty minutes? Wank off again to the memory of you? Lie on the fucking sofa and tear myself to shreds for what I've done to all of us?

"Yeah," Sirius said. "Goodnight then." He took two more steps up, not quite turning away yet.

"Goodnight," said James.

Their eyes met once more. Sirius gave him a fleeting smile. He turned and walked up the stairs. 

James stood there, the banister rails cold in his tightening hands, and felt his world slip out of his grasp.


End file.
